“I see,” she answered presently, “I haven’t any illusions about you, Wilton. I had once, of course. You’re selfish. You don’t really care what happens to anybody but yourself. While this thing has dragged on and you have put off making it an open engagement, I’ve hoped and suffered everything—and you’ve let me. You know that we couldn’t walk along the river-path three times together without all Roseborough chattering about it and wondering whether you would marry me—and then sneering at me because there was no announcement. You do care for me—more than you can ever care for any one but yourself. I’m not afraid of poverty—or work. Merely ornamental you called me! I do everything at Aunt Emma’s—excepting the roughest work. I wouldn’t mind if she’d be fair enough to say that I am not living on her charity, but that I earn what she gives me. Don’t you suppose I could drudge for you and myself as I do for her and Corinne? And I’d have my own home—even if it was only two rooms, and not be slighted and treated contemptuously as a poor hanger-on.” A hard, dry sob shook her. “I won’t go back to that awful life with aunt—without you—without any hope. You can’t be so cruel to me.”
Howard winced. He had natural feeling enough to be ashamed of himself; and his emotion for her was stirred by her intensity.
“Mabel, dear, need you say all this? You know I love you. You have said so. But—it’s hopeless. I haven’t enough to keep us even in the poorest comfort. We’ve got to end it.”
She shook her head.
“Don’t delude yourself. I will not be given up. You came and sought me and paid me attentions. You let me think you meant to marry me. And I’ve let you kiss me. I suppose that doesn’t mean anything to a man. But it does to a girl. I kissed you as the man I was going to belong to. I’d feel degraded if I could change. No, Wilton. You have brought something into power in me that you will have to reckon with. It controls me utterly; and I mean that it shall govern you, too. You shall never marry Rosamond or any one but me. I will stop it somehow. I’ll give Aunt Emma something worth while to talk about!”
“Hush! Don’t talk so wildly. If there were really a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, don’t you suppose I’d rather set off with you to find it?”
He took her into his arms suddenly. She yielded to his embrace, as if it soothed the wound he had dealt her love and her faith.
“Oh, Mabel, I’ve ceased to feel responsibility about anything. I’m simply a product of this bloodless, stagnant little village. Conditions rule individuals. Accept the facts, dear, and be wise.”
She put her arms round his neck. If her resolution did not falter, tenderness overflowed it for the moment. She recognized that what he said of himself was true—“the product of a bloodless, stagnant village.” She thought that he did not love her less than she loved him, but that he believed that the Roseborough which had shaped him must conquer him; whereas, she, of more rebellious clay, had thrown down the gauntlet to Roseborough. They clung to each other recklessly, then tore apart, because they heard Rosamond’s voice in the garden and the doctor’s answering.
Regaining a show of composure, they went into the dining room. The doctor—entering with Rosamond and Frei—was induced by his hostess’s urging to risk his digestion with “one small sandwich and a thimbleful of wine.”